The daily deaths of Covid-19 in the United States finally appear to be decreasing from the highest levels ever, following the steps of improving data on cases and hospitalizations, generating a cautious optimism from public health officials and medical professionals.
Deaths in the country peaked in mid-January, when the seven-day average of reported deaths was around 3,300 per day, up from 1,100 deaths recorded a day just two months earlier, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
While daily deaths still remain close to the historic high and are well above the highest numbers during previous peaks, the average number of deaths has dropped sharply in the past few days. On February 1, the seven-day average of daily deaths was 3,172. On Wednesday, that number dropped to 2,765, according to the Journal’s analysis of the latest data from Johns Hopkins. Thursday saw a slight increase to 2,781, which appeared to have been influenced by Ohio, adding an accumulation of Covid-19 deaths.
The number of excess deaths linked to the pandemic significantly exceeded the reported deaths from Covid-19, partly due to underreporting caused by problems such as the lack of diagnostic tests at the beginning of the pandemic, according to health researchers. Ohio officials said on Wednesday that the state may have underreported up to 4,000 Covid-19 deaths because of “process problems”, while a year-end audit in Indiana revealed 1,507 additional deaths.
The recent reduction in Covid-19 deaths solidifies a trend of hopeful signs after a brutal increase in winter, with cases and hospitalizations declining first. Deaths are a slow indicator and it can take several weeks for people admitted to hospitals for serious illnesses to succumb to the illness, said William Janssen, a pulmonologist and chief of the intensive care team at National Jewish Health in Denver.
“Patients who die from Covid do not normally die the day they are admitted to the hospital,” said Dr. Janssen.
The seven-day average of new coronavirus cases reported in the U.S., which helps smooth out data reporting irregularities, dropped to 101,757 on Thursday, the lowest point in three months, according to Johns Hopkins data. Hospitalizations also dropped to their lowest level in about three months, and pressure decreased in intensive care units, with 15,190 Covid-19 patients needing treatment in ICUs.
The latest federal data on nursing homes – as of January 31 – show what appears to be six consecutive weeks of counting down new residents’ deaths linked to these facilities, with the pace of decline increasing in recent weeks. The most recent count of 2,872 Covid-19 deaths in the week ending January 31 is almost half the weekly level seen in late December.
The most recent figure is likely to be revised upward in future reports, based on recent trends, but not enough to break the trend for lower weekly mortality counts. The Medicare and Medicaid Service Centers release a new week of nursing home data every Thursday.
As long-term care facilities have consistently accounted for more than a third of all deaths in the U.S., the drive to vaccinate these facilities and contain a long-term pandemic outbreak problem has the potential to lead to a noticeable decline in total deaths in the USA as well. Nearly 4 million people in long-term care, including residents and employees, received one or more doses of vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I think we are seeing real signs of improvement in terms of mortality in Covid nursing homes and, given the high proportion of deaths attributable to long-term care institutions, I believe we will see an additional decline in overall mortality in the coming days,” said David Grabowski, professor at Harvard Medical School, by email.
Dr. Janssen also said that he expects deaths to continue to decline in the short term, although he is concerned about possible outbreaks caused by new, more infectious variants of the virus. He said he also fears that fatigue due to social detachment and wearing masks could also cause coronavirus infections and, eventually, an increase in deaths.
“Vaccination will help prevent infections and deaths,” he said, “but we still have a long way to go on that front.”
California, the most populous state, recently surpassed New York as the state with the highest number of deaths from Covid-19, with more than 45,000 reported deaths. Even so, California, which is just beginning to emerge from a prolonged and deadly increase, has fewer deaths per 100,000 people than New York, according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The number of daily deaths in California remains high, with the 14-day average showing 464 deaths on Wednesday, below the peak of 542 on February 1, according to the California Department of Public Health.